Little League
For most, it takes a few hard collisions of sunny idealism and cold bewilderment to first see the truth, and usually an accumulation of injustices and embarrassments before we understand how things really are. But some can point to the exact moment when the childish bubble of inscrutable fairness is popped and life is then seen in a grayer, meaner light. For Logan, it was that Little League umpire - the gangly boy whose slight frame was swallowed by black padding and whose pimply cheeks and silver-wired teeth hid behind a hard plastic mask – who first caused him to see that those we look up to and suppose infallible really do not have obdurate powers of wisdom and cool, and that sometimes right is turned into wrong. Sliding hard after speeding down the line from third on a sharp grounder with two outs to score the winning run, a nine year-old Logan would quickly be taught about disappointment.
He felt his foot brush the hard, rubbery white of home plate and then, an instant after, the dull slap of glove and ball on his back. The two things happened quickly: “bang-bang” as Coach Derek would say, but there was no doubt of the sequence. He was safe, had scored the winning run, and the game was over. The kid was going to be a hero, this was his moment. They would talk about it at school the next day and for a long time afterwards. Logan’s heart tripped crazily as he gyrated his whole body, conjuring himself up from the dirt and onto his knees, feeling at that moment his own joy swelling in cadence with the electric anticipation of his team’s adulation. Coach Derek loved hustle, and Logan could almost feel his coach’s thick hands gripping his shoulders and shaking him with big-man appreciation for that hustle. Logan was a hustler, had shown hustle, and had won the game. Clutching his helmet in disbelief, Logan turned toward his team’s dugout, ready for them to pile-on.
The catcher held the ball up forlornly, the scuffed white crescent sticking half-out of the glove’s webbing like a scoop of ice cream he did not want. The umpire hesitated, his mouth dropping open to reveal strands of wire pinching sallow teeth that seemed too big for his slim mouth. The teenager stared at the plate as if it held an answer. “You’re out!” he called, the uneven timbre of his voice suggesting that it may have been a question.
Coach Derek threw his clipboard to the ground. “You missed it ump!” Coach Derek yelled. “That cost us the game!”
Parents in the stands groaned in disapproval as Logan’s teammates reversed their charge toward him and stalked madly around the infield in all directions like stunned, crazed dervishes, grasping their own heads as if just shot. Logan pumped his legs, seemingly trying to drive the injustice into the dirt. “No way!” he screamed at the boy. A sick shock squeezed at the heart that pumped so fiercely, and suddenly nothing made sense. The young umpire removed his bulky mask, held it tenderly in slender fingers. His red, bumpy face looked scared, almost mournful.
There was a commotion around him and suddenly a strong, adult hand wrested Logan away, shoving him down. Logan saw his father step over him, screaming at the umpire, spittle flying off his lips. Laying on his stomach, Logan watched his father as if he were a stranger, after a while tasting the dust that his father kicked on the boy. The umpire stood awestruck and mute, then his lip quivered and he squeezed his eyes tight; he put the big mask back on and trudged away, shoulders slumped. Logan watched his father stalk after him, curses pouring out, unbroken and ugly. Some of the other dads grabbed his father, pulling him away from the boy, but their jostling only seemed to energize the man. “Let it go!” one of them yelled. “He’s just a kid,” grunted another. “Bad calls happen,” seethed someone else’s father. “Set a better example,” chided someone’s mother.
“Did you get that on tape?” Logan’s father screamed at a man in the bleachers who held a camcorder. “I want that videotape! I’m taking this to the league!”
Coach Derek helped Logan up from the ground. He took off his stiff team cap and ran thick fingers through his hair before letting out a sigh, and crouching down to meet Logan’s eyes. “I’m sorry Logan,” he said. “I know this has got to be disappointing.”
Logan watched his teammates attack a cooler full of popsicles that one of the moms had brought, then watched the umpire, still cased in his mask and chest protector, climb jerkily up onto a bike behind the dugout. The boy’s cleats pumped desperately at the pedals, propelling him just beyond Logan’s father, who stalked after him, still screaming about the blown call, and the wrongness of it all. As the boy pedaled out of view, Logan’s focus on his father seemed to sharpen and become somehow more vivid. A clutch of men surrounded his father, some pleading for him to calm down, some grunting admonitions through gritted teeth to act like a man.
Logan thought a moment about what Coach Derek had said. He recognized the disappointment that roiled in his gut; he had felt it before, but not like this. A nascent sorrow tightening at his throat and tickling his eyes, and a gloomy resignation hardening his jaw were new sensations, and he could not quite figure them out. Logan brushed the dirt from his knees, then nodded slowly at the coach’s words, before walking off the field to get his father.
Tim Jones is a fiction writer living in Northern California. His work has previously appeared in The First Line, Underwood, Into the Void (coming Oct. 2020), and has been featured on the Pendust Radio Literary Podcast. Originally from the Detroit area, he is a big fan of the Lions, Tigers, Pistons, and Wings, which means he knows a lot about faith, perseverance, and disappointment.